Socialist approach to agriculture

I have read the article ``Russia's Agrarian Party Runs Against Land Reform,'' Dec. 1, with much interest and some incomprehension.

I have been a socialist all my voting life; once the socialist-left in the Labor Party here was a force to be reckoned with. No one thought there was any hope of a communist takeover in Australia - the most that could be hoped for was that production should be primarily for the needs of the people and not for profit. Is this not what the Agrarian Party has in mind? Is it not apparent that collective farming is the only legitimate goal?

Russian President Boris Yeltsin, it seems, would take them back to the ``romantic'' days of ``War and Peace'' when the most the serfs could hope for was slow starvation. Ruth Heffernan Whittington, Australia